Galbraith's Fearless Challenge: Read It.

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

            What is the difference between American economics
            (as in the American Economic Association) and Ameri-
            can business (as in industries, firms and lobbyists who
            persuade Congress to define our economy to favor
            themselves and those who buy its majority votes)?

            There are distinctions -- but maybe no difference, (as
            the old saying goes.)  But Jamie Galbraith has written
            a sparkling critique of economics, neoliberal, if not
            just plain American, which, if I remember, he calls
            "mainstream".  You have to read it for sheer pleasure.
  Goto  http://www.prospect.org/archives/V11-7/galbraith-j.html

            After you've read it the question he asks will haunt
            you:  If we would succeed in solving our current
            economic problem -- to end poverty, pollution,
            unemployment, self-absorbtion and just plain
            ignorance (among both the educated and the
            unlearned) -- must we move beyond the law of
            property and phenomenon of price to develop
            systems that trail behind a steadily rising
            minimum standard of living?

            These will be both business and economic
            systems, the  former focused on firms,
            industries, and markets, the latter on nations,
            peoples, and the human species on earth.

            We must design and implement not just ways
            to maximize personal gain, but a full blown
            economic system with enough adaptability to
            conquer uncertainty, -- until nature itself, in the
            form of a devasting event, (not mere human
            greed), ends all we have made of the bounty
            it provided its favored species til then.

            I think the full blown system will assign to an
            inflation protected account the task of limited
            self-correction for inflation that eats away at
            the value of lawful money.

            That would put an end to taxation, interest
            and unemployment presently assigned to the
            difficult task above. (Of course, compromise
            may be wise -- to let interest linger awhile,
            at rates low enough not to steal food out
            of the mouths of the poor.)

            Certainly the full blown system will not be a
            reflection of the unconscionable opportunism
            prevailing today -- for, if it is, poverty and
            pollution will do us in.

            Yet the force for self-absorbtion that Jamie
            Galbraith observes, (and may be driving these
            querty keys), will not be easily displaced by
            information engineering determined to
            rationalize business and the national interest.

            Data warehousing, mining, and decision support
            have made a 34 year old quant jockey, from
            MIT and Dupont, the owner of 6,000 million
            dollars. He sees the value of information to
            reduce cost -- and thereby earn a great deal of
            money whose capital value has climbed sky-high
            after a public offering that tied investment and
            speculation into an unfathomable knot.

            This is an example of new wealth, built on
            science and debt, that seems unlikely to create
            sustainable real wealth in homes, health, food,
            and the stuff of modern life -- unless the unsolved
            elements of a market economy, (like the general
            provision  of a decent parachute for all at risk
            of failure to offer a saleable product),  are, in
            fact, solved.

            How?   By expansion of the law of private
            property to include an economic bill of rights,
            as well as, solid strategic plans to produce real
            wealth in abundance.


        John Gelles
         email    1944@xxxxxxxx
             url    http://1944.org